


today i saw the whole world

by owbobmyhead



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Ambiguity, Blood and Injury, Brief descriptions violence, Bruises, Emotional Hurt, Frank gets beat up a lot, Gerard has gauges because I wanted him to, Gerard is out a lot, Heavy Angst, Internal Conflict, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Probably one if the best things I've written, Realization, They're both being used/hurt, Title from ptv song, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Very brief mention of self harm, Wrote this in a bad place, danger days era gerard, getting better, vent - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:08:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22856005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owbobmyhead/pseuds/owbobmyhead
Summary: frank has a bully.he doesn't say much.
Relationships: Frank Iero/Gerard Way
Kudos: 37





	today i saw the whole world

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted this with a different pair but I decided to change it to frerard

Frank has a bully. He doesn't say much.

  
  
  


And he wouldn't call it that. No, even though it was exactly what it seemed to be. He took the punches lightly, while in reality they were brutal and broke blood vessels, causing bruises to bloom across skin that still couldn't tan despite the hours he sat on the sidewalk each day. Waiting. 

  
  
  


It wasn't really a bully. He sat there, asking for it in a way, because he knew damn well that the kid always saw him alone on the sidewalk when he walked by. And he knew that was his own fault. He kept going back, even though it was himself that he abused. If he didn't make the choice to leave his house and sit in the same spot each day he wouldn't get beaten-- but he still did. He was his own bully. 

  
  
  


It didn't surprise him anymore when he would look up from his ratted sneakers and see a shadow casting down on him, fist raining down like a single bullet from the grey clouds. He didn't flinch, well, only a little from impact. The only thing he felt was a twinge of sickness in his gut when he saw that wicked grin splayed out on the boys lips as he unleashed his unrelenting, and seemingly without cause, wrath. Frank didn't know where the hatred came from. He didn't ask. There was sick entertainment living in those flame filled eyes and he didn't dare question what fuelled them. For all he knew, he was the extinguisher. Once the pounding in his head ceased, the flames were stomped out and dead as the kid would stomp away. 

  
  
  


Frank was left biting the curb. 

  
  
  


He watched the earth from vertical vision, as if his eyes were placed into his skull crooked and faulty. His jaw ached, almost like it did when you have a cavity so deeply rooted that it turns your gums black. Gums that were inflamed and bleed when picked. He tasted the metallic bitterness on his tongue, but it was from his nose. Oh, his nose. He was surprised beyond belief that it hadn't been shattered by now. He was surprised nothing was, nothing except for his dignity as he lay on the sizzling sidewalk on a mid August afternoon, bleeding out like roadkill. He would be fine. He would pick himself up before his neighbors got home to save them the burden of seeing him this way, and take himself inside to decay away there, instead. He didn't want to be the cause of anyone else's relocation. Who wouldn't want to move if they saw the kid next door dead on the sidewalk? 

  
  
  


He just wanted to see the moon, that's all he really wanted in return for the bruises. The past couple days the sky had been so condensed with clouds that not even a single star would peek through. He felt helpless, not because of his current state, but because of the fact that the stars were _there_ , he was just too small to see them past the barrier. If only he were taller, he could see an endless sky. But he was so, so small. If only.

  
  
  


He rolled over onto his back, eyes rolling back into place as he now lay horizontal with the sky. It looked clearer tonight, he felt hope. The tiniest scrap of hope, like crumbs left on the surface of a hardwood table that prick at your skin when you lay your palms down. Microscopic, yet viable. He kept his eyes open, palms lying on the pavement and feeling tiny pebbles press in. 

  
  
  


The blood from his nose took a turn at his lip and cascaded down his cheek, pooling at his right ear. The sensation was gross, and he thought about blood getting stuck and drying in his ear canal but didn't wipe it away no matter how sick it made him feel. He did feel sick, really, really sick even when he didn't let himself admit it. His stomach felt like it had been grabbed with dirty hands and mangled into one big knot, ribs misplaced in the process. His untouched insides that once were flesh pink now grey and covered in ash. He twisted his face up without meaning to. 

  
  
  


The look on the others face as he pounded his fist into Frank's face crossed his mind. Pure entertainment. Like it felt so good to be doing what he was, pure bliss and contentment. At least he gave someone else pleasure through his pain. His face twisted up at that thought, too. 

  
  
  


"Do you need to go to the hospital?" 

  
  
  


Frank felt his heart pound back into rhythm, the voice working as stints. A man stared down at him-- face twisting again at the thought of what exactly the other was seeing. Frank stared for a long while at the man with long, red, messy hair, dark eyes, jeans that were ripped to scraps, and a shirt with the sleeves and collar torn off. He was barefoot, and his right arm was wrapped in gauze. He had large black gauges that Frank faintly wondered if a whole finger could fit through. 

  
  
  


"No." He replied, thankful that during the long pause the other hadn't gotten his phone out to dial 911.

  
  
  


"You look beat to a pulp," a cigarette was pulled out at some point, he didn't know how he missed it, "I'm pretty good at mending things but you might be a piece of work."

  
  
  


"I didn't ask you to mend me," he didn't mean to sound so cold, "I'm human. I can heal."

  
  
  


Lips wrapped around white paper. "You're human, you could bleed out."

  
  
  


Frank nodded his head, eyes back to the sky, "yeah, yeah, I can."

  
  
  


" _Could_ , you're not going to. Now get up."

  
  
  


Frank kept his eyes skyward and stubborn, "I appreciate you wanting to help," there was a terrible scratch in his throat, "but I just want to see the moon, please. I just want to see the moon and it hasn't come out once all week and I just need to see the _fucking_ moon."

  
  
  


His voice had broken into a mess of rasp and brokenness that seeped through cracks like thick syrup. He finally wiped at his nose and the blood felt thick, too. 

  
  
  


He didn't see the other look up to the sky with him. "We can see the moon, I have a spot way better than this. We won't miss it, it'll always be there."

  
  
  


Frank closed his eyes and felt his lip tremble and he wished the other would just leave him alone because he was too nice and positive and he wanted to be left to sulk under the moon's rays and bleed out and be swept away. And most of all, he didn't want to say any of this. Didn't want to explain. 

  
  
  


"You don't have to tell me anything, just let me get you cleaned up. You won't have to say a word. I don't like talking much, anyway." 

  
  
  


Frank sat up a few moments later, tired of the stranger being able to read his mind. The cigarette was put out in a puddle of Frank's blood. 

  
  
  


.

  
  
  


The stranger was his neighbor. His plan of not bothering his neighbors gone to absolute shit as he sat in the guys apartment and worried his lip between his teeth. 

  
  
  


The layout was identical to Frank's, just sort of mix matched and backwards, giving off the vibe of a parallel universe version of his own apartment just nextdoor. He didn't like the way it felt so off, so crooked and sideways. He was sitting at the kitchen table, similar to his but so wrong. 

  
  
  


He was promised the pardon of not having to speak, but he did anyway. "How long have you lived here?"

  
  
  


"Two years."

  
  
  


Frank looked at him sideways. "How come I never knew you were my neighbor?" 

  
  
  


The other was wetting a towel to press to Frank's nose. "I'm out a lot."

  
  
  


Frank didn't believe him. "Frank. That's my name, I mean."

  
  
  


The other looked down at him, "Gerard."

  
  
  


Frank decided the gauges were big enough to fit a whole pinky through. He didn't try, though. 

  
  
  


The towel was cold and after long enough of pressing it to his nose made his fingers prune. He didn't mind, he liked the way it made his skin look different than it usually did. He liked seeing himself in ways that he didn't see every day. Maybe it was also some sort of sick entertainment. Maybe everyone had something like that. Maybe he was crazy.

  
  
  


"I think I'm fine now, I want to go back to my spot."

  
  
  


Gerard had taken a seat across from him, looking at him sideways this time. "You said you're human, right? It takes longer than ten minutes and a wet rag to be fine again."

  
  
  


"I can take it, the bruises and hurt. I'm fine, I'm breathing, I'm talking, I can stand up."

  
  
  


"Sit down." Gerard cut through the fit of heavy breathing that arose. Frank sat.

  
  
  


He stared out the windows next to them, the moon peeking through the clouds. Frank didn't look. "Do you let that kid beat you up all the time? Do you ask him to?"

  
  
  


"I don't ask him to." 

  
  
  


"But you let him."

  
  
  


Frank looked out the window. 

  
  
  


"Why do you let him?"

  
  
  


"Why do you care? You've lived here, how long? Two years you said? And you never bothered talking to me before now." 

  
  
  


"I'm out a lot. I just saw it happen once before and tonight." 

  
  
  


"You're 'out a lot', sure. Says the one who says he doesn't like talking and walks around barefoot everywhere." 

  
  
  


He didn't like the flash of hurt on the others face as his tongue poked out the corner of his mouth. He wanted to choke out a 'sorry'.

  
  
  


"Fine. If you don't need my help, don't ask for it."

  
  
  


"I didn't ask for it!"

  
  
  


"Exactly, but you took it anyways." 

  
  
  


Frank left a few minutes later with a 'sorry' still sitting on the tip of his tongue and a deeper feeling of sickness in his stomach. 

  
  
  


.

  
  
  


Frank should've gone to the hospital. 

  
  
  


And he should've believed Gerard, who really was out a lot. He hadn't seen the other since that night, and it had been two weeks. Two weeks, and the bruises barely faded. Two weeks and his head still ached. 

  
  
  


Gerard went out a lot, and Frank stayed in. He hadn't gone out to the curb since that night, hadn't gone out in search of the hands of the boy who held him in a hug filled with disaster. Frank romanticized the relationship, the absolutely fucked up relationship between him and his bully. He called bullshit on himself a lot, but not to the point where he had enough strength to actually listen to himself calling himself out. He listened, nodded, and turned away. Turning a blind eye to the truth much like those who see the earth decaying under their feet but refuse to accept the fact that they're killing it. It was going to die, anyway. Everything comes to an end one day. But does that mean that we have to watch it burn?

  
  
  


Frank didn't look for the answer to the question. He left it out in the open for something else to grab hold of it and take it out of his stream of thought, just like he did with a lot of things.   
  
  


He sat at his window some days, waiting for sight of the kid to come around the corner and walk the sidewalk in front of Frank's apartment. He saw his eyes flickering around for sight of Frank, and he saw the frustration when he didn't find him there waiting, weak on the ground. Frank felt his hands shake and let go of the curtains. 

  
  
  


He stayed in a lot.

  
  
  


He always had, but even more so after the recent events. He didn't want to call his meeting with Gerard an eye opening experience, because he wanted his eyes to stay obliviously shut-- but in ways it was. Like it opened a third eye that he didn't have control of, an eye that saw the truth past all of the voices cutting across his skull. An eye that saw the truth that Frank was fucking tired and that this wasn't what he wanted, an eye that saw the truth so deeply rooted in his core that screamed for an end to this. He wanted it to end, he didn't want this self inflicted pain. That's what it was, even while being inflicted by anothers hands-- he was searching for it. He kept going back again and again. So he stayed inside and hid.   
  
  


He thought it was the cure, the answer, until thoughts shifted elsewhere telling him he didn't need someone else to do it. He didn't need to rely on someone else to hurt him, he could finally take something in his life of chaos into his own hands and hold it still before it shoots away from him and out of reach again. 

  
  
  


He found himself sitting on his bathroom floor, the blinding white clock on his dying phone reading 12:57 a.m. Breathing in deeply, the sour tang of 91% alcohol entering his nose and stinging his throat. It smelled of metal, acrylic paint, nail polish. It tasted bitter like cranberries, slimy pomegranate seeds, and rotton like mold that grew on them in the form of white fuzz. It felt like hanging on monkey bars until your hands turned raw and stung, or the feeling of fallen leaves and twigs crunching under bare feet.   
  
  


He closed his eyes and saw carnations blooming behind shut eyelids, red birds flying above them, a blood moon giving them light. He pictured a red mailbox, a red carpet, a maroon sofa sitting inside a quiet house. Gerard had a red mailbox. He opened his eyes, realizing he had been biting at cuticles that were already far too short. They bled. He wiped them on his jeans. The clock read 1:23 a.m.

  
  
  


He was a fucking wreck. 

  
  
  


.  
  
  


The next time he saw Gerard he tasted the same sour taste on his tongue. It didn't come from an inhale of a scent this time, but from the bitter twinge of confusion stirring across his taste buds. Gerard had marks like cranberries all up and down his pale neck, scattered like dead flower petals across stark linoleum. He was walking along the sidewalk when Frank spotted him, who was sitting at the window staring out like a watchdog without anything in particular to watch for. He hadn't seen Gerard in weeks, faintly wondering if he really hadn't been home in all that time. A part of him wanted to get up, feeling a tingle in his legs as if his brain was trying to signal him to stand, but he sat.   
  
  


Gerard had a limp in his step, he noticed. His hair was a wreck as usual, drenched in grease from going without a shower in what looked like a long time, jeans ripped in too many places, shirt hanging off his shoulder comically. Across his chest read "tread on me", to which Frank pondered over for awhile before deciding that's not what the saying was originally. And, not to his surprise, he was walking barefoot along the pavement that he could only imagine was warm from sitting under the sun-- beat up sneakers dangling from their laces, suspended from slim fingers. 

  
  
  


For a moment he saw Gerard's eyes travel from the ground in front of him up to Frank's apartment, as if trying to see through the walls to see how he was doing. Frank sent him a message telepathically, deciding if anyone would be able to read minds, it would be him. 

  
  
  


_'I'm not doing well, I haven't healed. Have you?'_

  
  
  


And what was it that needed healing?

  
  
  


.  
  
  


He left his house the day after Gerard came home. 

  
  
  


His walls began to close in on him, threatening to suffocate him like a boa constrictor wrapped around his neck, tightening until his head popped. Peeking out behind curtains, sitting on the bathroom floor, smelling the scent of bitter chemicals until it sent him to his feet and out the front door. The sun had set, his feet bare, baggy sweatpants and a hoodie that was too fucking big covering his body that was beginning to feel warm and on the verge of a sweat. He made quick of his walk past his spot on the sidewalk that was usually stained with his blood, turning in the direction of Gerard's place. He passed the red mailbox, fist connecting with the wooden door before his mind could catch up and pull him away.

  
  
  


It took awhile for an answer, but when he got one, it was from a stranger. It was Gerard, of course, but his face seemed distorted, almost like looking through binoculars that you get in a kids meal from McDonald's made out of shitty plastic and flimsy lenses from China. Blurry, hazy, although similar-- but just not right. 

  
  
  


"Hey, Frankie." His voice was the same, just a bit deeper with a heavy scratch. Maybe he had been smoking more. 

  
  
  


"Hey," he began to sweat, "sorry it's late, I just needed to get out of the house."  
  
  


"Hope you don't mind, but I feel like I need to stay _in_ the house," he offered a tired smile, "but you can join me. At least it's a different setting." 

  
  
  


Frank nodded and followed him inside. He didn't say that _no_ , it wasn't a different setting because his apartment looked exactly the same just backwards-- he was just glad to be let in. Gerard led him to the living room where the tv was on playing some movie quietly, the lights off to allow the screen to glow its radiation through colors across the walls. Frank let his eyes scan the plain walls. Gerard didn't have any pictures hung. 

  
  
  


"You can sit down, sorry I was in the middle of watching this movie. It's kinda' crap but, y'know, it was all that's on and I don't have Netflix or fancy shit like that." 

  
  
  


Frank sat on the maroon colored couch next to the other, foot accidentally knocking over an empty beer bottle as he watched the screen. It was some cheesy horror movie playing on a random cable channel, one where the girls screamed so loud and wore shirts too small to cover their big breasts, and where the guys were blonde with blue eyes and acted like total douchebags. Frank watched as gallons of fake blood was poured onto some random girl who just so happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.   
  


"What've you been up to?" Frank asked, trying to drown out the high pitched scream bleeding through the speakers. He looked to his left where Gerard sat, legs stretched out in front of him, head resting on the back of the couch.   
  
  


"Been out, nothing much."

  
  
  


Frank blinked a few times. Another girl screamed. 

  
  
  


"Did you go anywhere fun?" Another attempt. 

  
  
  


A shrug, "sure, it was alright."

  
  
  


Frank let his eyes fall to the others chest, seeing he was wearing that same shirt again. "Funny, that shirt seems like more of something I should wear."

  
  
  


Gerard finally looked over, "thought you said you didn't ask for it."  
  
  


Frank wanted to take this as some dark attempt at humor, so he did while trying to keep up, "did _you?_ "

  
  
  


The faint glow in Gerard's eyes dropped to a char of ashes, turning grey. He looked back to the screen. They stayed quiet for a long time after that, neither following the shitty plot or storyline but trying to look like they were. Neither cared, neither cared at all. 

  
  
  


Gerard let Frank stay on the couch that night. 

  
  
  


Before he retired to his room he turned to Frank who was beneath the softest blanket he could find, "Neither of us do."

  
  
  


"Do what?" 

  
  
  


Gerard looked like a shadow in the doorway, "ask for any of this."

  
  
  


Frank wanted to ask what _any of this_ was exactly, but deep down, he knew. He counted the cranberries on Gerard's neck and inhaled the soft fabric beneath his nose-- hands desperately hanging on monkey bars, legs dangling in thin air. 

  
  
  



End file.
